Salix
by vividfantasy7
Summary: He sees her where everything started, hidden from millions of twinkling suns under the willow tree - and knows this is the beginning of their end.


Finally finished the whole season, though this was written before that…

You guys up to some angst?

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He sees her where everything started, hidden from millions of twinkling suns under the willow tree - and knows this is the beginning of their end.

He is uncertain why she wants to meet him - they fought today and it had been an unspoken rule of theirs not to call on each other after a battle - but he goes none the less, too anxious to see her after the day. She has her back to him when he arrives, her shoulders square as she visibly pulls herself together. He knows nothing good will come from this.

"Talia?"

Her name is a whisper on the cool summer wind that she answers with turning around, her expression a mixture of pain and sadness. Her eyes travel over him but stop on his shoulder where his clothes hide a nasty bruise caused by Auriana's ribbon and she steps closer before stopping and taking a step back. Her arms go around her torso as her eyes avert again to the ground.

"We need to stop this, Mephisto."

He stands still for a moment not daring to interpret her words - she couldn't be saying what he thinks she does, right?

"Stop what?"

"This." She motions the space between them and his heart falls to his stomach.

"I- what?" he speaks incoherently, sputtering one word sentences as he sees her shrinking into herself more and more.

 _No, no, this can't be happening_ , his mind chants desperately as he searches his brain for why she would so suddenly do this, why would she turn against him like that.

"If it's about the injury, you don't have to get your knickers in a twist, it's hardly anything. Just who do you think I am? As if something small like this could actually hurt me." He of course is belittling just what transpired mere hours before - if Prax didn't help in time, his whole arm could have been ripped out. But he plays dumb and plays the hero ( _hah_!) because he would do anything to keep what they have alive - this is the only good, _truly good_ , thing that has happened to him in a very long time. He isn't ready to give it up - he isn't sure he'll ever be ready to give it up.

"Don't joke about it," she hisses, barely audible. Her eyes are molten gold and he involuntarily gulps at the glare she gives - full of emotion, full of passion - as he resists the urge to gather her in his arms and keep her safe from the demons clouding her gaze. She repeats it, this time louder and steadier and in his face, fists beating his chest with every single world. He grasps her hands but she yanks them free and steps back to a safe distance - out of his reach.

He feels his stomach go heavy and cold, his throat contracts along his lungs. A moment later he is the one marching toward her and backing her into the bark of the tree, his mind blinded by rage and anger and _hurt_.

"Why shouldn't I?", his voice is bitter and cruel but he doesn't mind, "Don't tell me you're bored of this game already _Princess_ , we hardly started!" he sneers and stalks away, ignoring the hurt in her eyes, the near invisible shaking of her body, the way her expression turns stormier the second.

"Did you enjoy it? Playing me a fool? What was the plan, get me to turn against Gramorr? Be your spy? Sorry, Princess, your Xerin mind games don't work on me. I'm a _Zaterran_ , after all."

He aims his last sentence to thrust the closest he can to her heart - he is her enemy in every possible sense of the word. He is quite surprised when he is quite forcefully slammed into the willow tree, her hand fisting in his robes, her expression feral.

"I don't care, that you're Zaterran, you damn well know it Mephisto. Stop making this into a pissing contest just because you want to avoid the inevitable."

"And what would that be, Talia? Behave like an obedient _servant_ , and just do as you say? I thought you better than this."

He is ready to free himself from her hold and just leave, but he feels her fingers shake and loosen in his shirt, her hand stopping above his heart. Her face is curtained by her chocolate tresses but it is her voice that makes him stop in his movements - a broken whisper full of fear.

"You could have lost your arm," her fingers fist once again and he wills his heart to stop hammering in his chest, "you could have died. And I couldn't do anything. Not without compromising myself, not without revealing what we have. Not without betraying everything that I stand for. Betraying the people I love."

Her forehead hits his chest as she finally collapses into his embrace - he can't help himself as he pulls her closer and buries his face in her soft hair.

"Sooner or later we will have to choose. We will be _forced_ to choose," her arms sneak around his waist and hold on for dear life, "and I don't want to make that choice."

"I would choose you," his voice is raspy and his sentence contradicts his earlier statement but he doesn't care, "if I'd have to choose between Gramorr and you, I'd choose you Talia."

He feels her chuckle more then hears it and feels the corner of his lips rise in answer.

"But not if it's Praxina."

The smile falls off his face in a blink of the eye and his frame goes rigid. The brunette buries her nose where his shoulder and neck meet, murmuring against the material of his cape.

"It's not a bad thing. She's your family. Your most important person. This isn't a choice you should have to make." She steps back and raises her hands to cradle his face, directing his gaze to meet hers. "This is a fairly tale, Mephisto, what we have. One of those Earth lores but they don't always end with a happy ending. So many ends in tragedy, in broken people losing everything they hold dear. I can't lose Izira or the girls and you can't lose your sister. Not to this."

"In a different world maybe this could work out, maybe in another life it did. Or will. Who knows? But right here, right now, we are enemies. We are on different sides of a war - one that started nearly two decade ago and one that has been waging for centuries. We cannot deny the blood in our veins nor our duties. We could go on and let it destroy us or let it end here before it becomes too deep. Before it becomes too late to turn back."

"And what do you suggest, Princess, that'd I just turn my emotions off like nothing happened?"

He smirks when she snorts and playfully hits him.

"I don't know what kind of notion your people have of Xerins, but we can't actually do that."

Her smile fades after a heartbeat and her eyes are filled with melancholy. The moment is bittersweet and a heavy silence settles on them as she finally steps back and out of his reach.

"I'm not saying it'd be easy or that it'll happen overnight, nor that everything will be the same as before. But this is for the best. For us. For our loved ones."

She's silent as she awaits his sentence. He wishes what she said wouldn't be true and this was simply her being afraid and pushing him away. But he knows that the Xerin princess is right - their fate intervenes in a way that lives no room for a happy ending for them. He swallows and takes her hand in his, raises it to his lips gently kissing her knuckles in a finale good bye.

"Alright."

There is no satisfaction in her eyes at his words, more like a tired acceptance and a warm sadness.

She kisses him one last time - a light peck on his lips, innocent and sweet - before he takes a step back and teleports away.

She watches him disappear and remains in the shades of the gently swaying willow tree - facade falling she mourns the end of their beginning.

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The willow tree was kind of random, but after the final i'm pretty glad i went with it :D

The Xerin mind games is a reference to kirei's Wildest Dreams


End file.
